Category Archives: Gardening

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Took the plunge this season and decided to plant the first-ever rose bush in my flower garden. I wasn’t expecting any blooms the first year, but suddenly this beauty appeared! It smells sooooo good!! 💕

So much about summer to enjoy…so little time to take it all in. I’ve been a little absent from my various social media outlets the past few months & with good reason. My son started kindergarten this fall and I didn’t want to waste one second of my last summer as a ‘stay at home home mom’ with him. We truly had a blast and he is now loving school. As emotional as it was for me to send him off on this next big step in his little life, I have to admit it’s quite nice to have a little extra time to myself these days and as the cooler weather compels us all to spend more time indoors, I’m sure I will be reconnecting with my online community a lot more…instead of spending most of my time outside in my garden. Not that I regret it one little bit. It’s truly a labor of love and flowers like these make the hours of dirty, sweaty, scratchy work so worth it!

I celebrated finally finishing my taxes by spending Sunday afternoon, bundled up against the drizzle, clearing dead leaves and stalks out of my flower garden and I couldn’t have been happier. Few things are more satisfying than uncovering new growth after a long and dreary winter. I’m looking forward to many more hours of getting dirt under my fingernails! 🙂

I’ve been doing so much freelance design this past month, I’ve barely had time to sleep. It’s wonderful to be busy with paying work, but I’ve missed painting. So, yesterday I was finally able to sit down for a couple hours and add in most of the greens to this piece. I like knowing that at the same time live plants are also coming up in my garden. 🙂

There was snow on the ground last week when I took this pic of the appropriately-named ‘Pink Powder Puff’ flower hanging over the koi pond at the Quad City Botanical Center. My son played in their sand pit while I drank in all the prettiness and pretended it was summer.

I can’t believe it’s the 2nd week of November here in IL & I still have flowers! Not many, but I sure have been enjoying the nice weather & soaking up as much of the outdoors as I still can (what allergies?). Last weekend, after raking the yard, I cut down the spent blooms on my front porch planters, gathered pumpkins I had sitting around elsewhere & tucked dried leaves into the spots where dirt was showing to make the full fall transition. The pumpkins, studded with decorative upholstery tacks were decorated a couple weeks ago after family trip to the pumpkin patch. All the pretty leaves are now blowing away & it’s definitely getting colder, but it’s been a wonderful autumn season & I’m very much looking forward to the Thanksgiving finale!

The summer gardening season is nearly over, but I always look forward to adding one last burst of fresh color with a pot of fall mums. A collection of small pumpkins officially welcomes the changing of seasons as falling leaves gather on the ground. Autumn is always too short for my liking, but I intend to revel in every cozy moment.